<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Among the Ashes and Smoke by Melee12</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328917">Among the Ashes and Smoke</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melee12/pseuds/Melee12'>Melee12</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Burning, Fire, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mention of Immolation, The Desolation, its more everything is burning, not really 'graphic violence' but marked just in case, spoilers if you haven't listened to Magnus Archive 169, the magnus archives - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:27:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328917</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melee12/pseuds/Melee12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Jude Perry as a Desolation Avatar.  </p>
<p>This is part of a Discord Weekly Prompt. The prompt was "Ash".  So Fire and Ash it is!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Among the Ashes and Smoke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I feel like she sounded unhappy with the current state of the world? What if maybe everything isn't great for the Entities' Avatars?</p>
<p>Thank you for reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The heat was unbearable. It was the type of heat from a campfire that slowly roasted your legs as you sat in your seat until you had to cover them or move away.</p>
<p>Ash floated around the hallways of the apartments. The walls around Jude sizzled and cracked, blackened and falling apart in her wake. As her hand trailed across the wall of the hallway, new flames reached out to lick her fingers.</p>
<p>It didn’t burn her, at least not truely. She didn’t have the skin to singe. Not anymore. She took care of that a long time ago.  Yet, something was still a dull ache. </p>
<p><i>How long had she been here?</i> Time didn’t seem to move in this place.  </p>
<p>As the flames that Jude had called forth with her touch, ate into the wall of the hallway, she heard the scream from the apartment on the other side. She stopped to listen. Then she felt compelled to put her hands on the door of the apartment. <i>Did she want to do that? </i>She was unsure if the answer was yes. While she didn’t burn, couldn’t burn, she felt it. That unbearable heat. </p>
<p>It started at her fingertips. The heat pushed up into her wrists. Then, in terribly hot waves, up to her elbows, shoulders, neck. </p>
<p>Jude heard a shrill scream from the apartment.  </p>
<p>It was in perfect sync with her own.</p>
<p>All the pain of Jude’s self immolation came back to her in this moment, in every moment, her entity called upon her to start another fire. </p>
<p>As she obeyed, the cruel enjoyment of drawing out fear from her prey inside the apartment, coursed through her along with her own pain.  </p>
<p><i>Was that terrible thrill of her prey’s panic worth the searing pain that overwhelmed her as she sunk to her knees</i>?</p>
<p>That wasn’t a question that she would answer.  </p>
<p>This was the world now. </p>
<p>She had been a cog in the machine of a higher power and this was the result. </p>
<p>Avatars of the Entities were special. They were the predators of the new world. She could call herself a tiger or a bear or a bloody eagle. She wasn’t prey to her beautiful Entity and that was what mattered. So it meant she would deal with the painful not-actually-burning heat. She’d find release somehow with the fear she created in flame. She was not prey and that’s what mattered.</p>
<p>She was not prey and that’s what mattered. </p>
<p>She was not prey. That mattered.</p>
<p>She was not prey.</p>
<p>
  <i>Was she prey?</i>
</p>
<p>That wasn’t a question she would answer.</p>
<p>She had wanted this. She had worked for this. She had aligned herself to the Desolation. The one endgame of her and the rest of her ‘fellow flock’ was to bring forth her Entity and bring fear and damnation to all.  </p>
<p>Instead, the pesky Archivist, the man who could not keep his nose out of anything, brought forth not just her Entity, but every Entity of Fear in existence at once. So now there was nothing but fear left. No coffee shops to hole up in during a harsh rain as she melt fresh roast that she could no longer drink, yet reminded her of early, lazy mornings and a certain red head. No loud, rowdy gym with weights that felt easy in her hands, lifting far more than any man who looked on, surprised a tiny woman half their size could bench double than them. No fresh, humid days, with blinding sun and warm weather that made her feel some sort of right that she existed and would continue to exist in the world.   </p>
<p>They could work with this. They had to work with this. It was full on Fear-O-Pocolyse. </p>
<p>Every Entity was out to play alongside their Avatars. </p>
<p>Now they were to feed them.</p>
<p>It wasn’t what Jude had expected. It didn’t seem to be what the others of their Order had expected either. Reliving their human end seemed to be their norm that the Desolation so graciously gave them when they fed it.</p>
<p>The hall around Jude began to erupt in the flames she brought forth with her pain. What was left of the wallpaper turned ash, tile cracked, and the flames grew higher and higher. There was no escape from the thick, billowing smoke, searing flames, and the screams of those who would lose all they loved and cared for again and again and again in this Hell.</p>
<p>This was what the Desolation had wanted. This was what she had wanted.</p>
<p>
  <i>Was this what she wanted?</i>
</p>
<p>That was a question she would not answer.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p>
<p>I kinda want to do more Avatars along the way?</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>